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Pratt, Richard Henry

Pratt, Richard Henry, 1840–1924, American soldier and educator, b. Rushford, N.Y. He served in the Union army during the Civil War and then in the Indian wars in the West, where he became interested in the cultural problems of the Native Americans. He experimented in educating Native Americans, believing that they must be taught to reject tribal culture and adapt to white society. In 1879, he founded at Carlisle, Pa., a nonreservation school for Native Americans. He retired from the U.S. army in 1903 but supervised the Carlisle Indian School , maintained by the U.S. government and housed in an army barracks, until 1904.